“Autonomous crash” in Las Vegas Proves Self-Driving Cars are better

A Self-Driving shuttle service expected to celebrate its launch in Las Vegas sooner than later has had to endure a crush in its very first public test. Surprisingly, it was human’s fault, as reported, by a local Nevada broadcast outlet, KSNV News 3.

The shuttle manufactured by a French firm Navya but owned and run by another French Private Transportation firm, Keolis, left for it planned 0.6-mile loop around downtown Las Vegas, but before the elapse of one hour, the “autonomous crash,” as many call it, happened. The car was rewarding free rides to willing residents between the points of travel.

After a one hour operation, trying to strict to a two weeks pilot test program, which was created in January and spread to different months, the shuttle was hit on the front part by a large delivery truck that seemed to be pulling out from a loading bay headed towards a street.

A spokesperson for AAA, currently working with Keolis and Las Vegas to sponsor the project, and examine attitudes of humans towards autonomous vehicles came up to confirm the accident resulted from human mistakes.

For the majority of accidents involving autonomous cars, it’s been on record that humans emerge the causative agent and this added to the list. Luckily, in this case, there was minimum loss as only the front bumper is all that was damaged, despite the fact that a total of eight passengers were on-board -enjoying the free ride, none of them reported of experiencing impact.

The testing was in program

As previously stated by the French startup Navya, the testing was scheduled among other set of trials to sequentially take place at different other places. The Las Vegas Sun brought forth the following statement, “The city of Las will be busy for two weeks on autonomous trial.”

The outlet elaborated further that The Shuttle as it is named, is a 12-person driver-less car, its other name is Arma, and it’s similar in appearance to the original Google’s autonomous prototype. “The shuttle will offer rides free of charge down Fremont Street between Eighth Street and Las Vegas Boulevard.” clarified the magazine.

While the vehicle is capable of moving at a speed up to 27 mph, the experts have capped the car’s speed to 12mph for the trial period. That’s a very low speed but it would help to eliminate a case that would lead to placing blames on the car, that is if the unexpected occurred. The researchers want a clean and clear distinction between the accidents caused by human error and those resulting from the autonomous car’s fault or limitations.

In this particular situation, one Las Vegas city government representative, on their official Tumblr page, posted the incident, cause, and consequences of the accident.

The note made it clear that “an autonomous shuttle was being tested today and in a few minutes, a delivery track from nowhere gazed it, downtown. As designed, the Shuttle did exactly what it was supposed to do to handle such a situation.

Its sensors mastered and stored the information about the truck’s registration took several images and stopped -to avoid the collision. Unfortunately, the driver of the delivery truck didn’t step on the brakes, as was supposed. It was then that shuttle got grazed at the front part of the fender.

Had the truck possessed the same sensing mechanism that the shuttle depended on, the accident would not have occurred, because it would have “stopped dead.” Testing will continue in the next coming 12-months set aside to pilot the project, the same place -downtown Innovation District. However, the Shuttle remains off service for the remaining part of the day.”

Well, it’s confirmed that testing won’t stop. Keolis’ service comes out as the country’s first autonomous public transport option, and as foreseen, most Americans will want to interact with driverless cars if the test turns stressful.

There’s no hiding that the crash could stoke fear among some artificial intelligent-fearing and the paranoid crowd, but it’s believed the concern will fade away in less than two weeks. The ideal way of proving the viability of autonomous car is getting more of them into the public roads so that passengers and drivers can interact with the technology.

When you combine the autonomous technology with The Boring Company or Elon Musk’s idea of the underground tunnel, you get a completely modern transport system. The good news is that innovative minds like those at Google, Mr. Musk and the rest are working together (although mostly behind the glare) to ensure better transport systems are put in place.